


Acheronta movebo

by tree



Series: Banned Together 2020 bingo fills [3]
Category: Longmire (TV)
Genre: 15th Century, Alternate Universe - Medieval, Gen, Late Middle Ages, Menstruation, Mild Blood, Puberty, Roman Catholicism, references to past maternal and infant mortality of non-canon characters
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-27
Updated: 2020-05-27
Packaged: 2021-03-03 00:01:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,347
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24405442
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tree/pseuds/tree
Summary: The worth of a girl of her station was weighed with the utmost care.
Series: Banned Together 2020 bingo fills [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1751599
Comments: 2
Kudos: 15
Collections: Banned Together Bingo 2020





	Acheronta movebo

**Author's Note:**

> written for the Puberty square on my Banned Together 2020 bingo card.

> Flectere si nequeo superos, Acheronta movebo.  
>  — Virgil, The Aeneid

Vic had been hiding the changes in her body for almost a year without anyone the wiser. It was easy enough to do in her brothers' cast-off clothes; when Anthony's grew too narrow about her hips and chest, she simply filched from Alphonse instead. To all outward appearances, nothing had altered. She'd been trailing after her older brothers since she first learned to walk. No one in the household took a scrap of notice anymore.

Then came the morning she woke with a strange, burning sort of pain in her belly and spots of blood on the linen. Some had darkened to the colour of rust, others were a bright, accusatory red. Her first panicked thought was that she was dying. It was several minutes before her rational mind rose to the fore and made itself heard. 

That relief was swiftly followed by a new sort of despair. If her monthly blood had truly begun then it would not be possible to hide much longer. Once her mother learned of it, Vic's life would be curtailed of freedoms. She'd be forced to spend the next few years being paraded like a heifer at market. In the end, she'd be handed over to the man who offered whatever price was most to her family's advantage: traded like a sack of flour passed from her father's hands to her husband's, to be wedded and bedded and bring forth an heir. The worth of a girl of her station was weighed with the utmost care, her use to her family on one side and her use to her husband on the other. All that mattered was the balance of the scales. 

Never mind her use to herself. Never mind that, like as not, her husband would treat her with less dignity and respect than his horse. After all, horses, unlike wives, were useful animals capable of intelligence. A well-trained mount was difficult and expensive to replace, whereas a wife could be easily substituted: one for another who'd do just as well. Vic had seen a man mourn more for his prize bitch than the mother of his children.

Some couples were united in love, of course. She knew that. There were those who loved from the start and those who grew to it with time. But all she had seen of life told her a woman's fate in marriage was to endure either cruelty or indifference, and sometimes both. How could God sincerely rejoice in such unions being made in His name? Were those truly the only choices His mercy was content to offer her sex? 

Vic knew herself to be clever and capable, fit for far more than breeding. Alongside her brothers, she'd learned to read and to calculate sums; she'd learned geography and history and politics; how to ride and hunt, wield a sword, swim and fish; and even how to grapple in the dirt and best an opponent. Yet none of it held any value. A viable womb was the sole requirement of a noble woman.

 _I needn't even be alive to birth the babe,_ Vic thought darkly as she made herself climb out of bed. _They could cut it out of my belly easy enough._

She wrenched at the stained sheet until it came free of the featherbed. With it gathered in her arms, she contemplated her choices. She could take it to the laundress herself, perhaps bribe her with some trifling gift to keep silent; but that would require giving up the secret to another person, something Vic was loath to do. She could hide the sheet until evening, then burn it, making up some excuse to explain its absence. There would be punishment, for her mother despised careless waste, but no one would question the story. Vic was forever getting into trouble for some reason or other. What was one more transgression?

It was only when she heard a light knock at the door that she understood how long indecision had caused her to dally. The door opened. The maid entered. Vic felt her heart drop all the way to her toes, then fling itself back up into her throat, and couldn't think past the strong desire to run.

"Miss Victoria?"

She scowled at the use of her full Christian name. Her mother had ordered the servants to always use it and Anne was new enough in her position to obey even the smallest instruction exactly. That didn't mean Vic had to like it. Her old maid had left them in the spring to start her own household and Vic missed her dreadfully. Maggie had never called her Victoria when they were alone.

"Is aught amiss?" prompted Anne. She was obviously puzzled to find her charge standing in the middle of the room holding a bundled sheet in her arms.

"No," Vic said quickly, and turned to toss the sheet on the bed carelessly, as if its removal had been nothing but a whim. "I was only—"

"Oh!" came the soft cry behind her. She whirled to find a sympathetic look on the older girl's face, her eyes trained low.

Vic grabbed the hem of her shift and pulled it around to find more of the telltale signs of her bleeding. "You mustn't tell anyone!" she cried in renewed panic. The servants gossiped amongst themselves and one way or another the news would reach her mother's ears before the day was out.

"God has blessed you, miss. There's no shame in it."

"It is no blessing to _me_."

Anne looked scandalised.

Vic immediately regretted her lapse. It was safer to let others believe she was nothing more than what they expected a girl child to be, but at times she forgot. Schooling her face into a pained, regretful expression, she said in a plaintive voice, "It's just that it hurts."

Sympathy spread over Anne's earnest face and she was suddenly all understanding. "Of course. It takes some of us worse than others. My sister must keep to her bed for at least a day each time for it brings a faintness upon her as well as the pain."

 _And this is our lot,_ thought Vic sourly. _Such is God's generous blessing._ Aloud, she said, "I suppose I will become accustomed to it."

"Often the first sign is not followed for some months. It was that way for me. Almost a full year before it came again, and then it settled more regularly after that."

Hope stirred in Vic for the first time since waking. To delay even a little longer, that would be the real blessing.

"Here now," said Anne, as she took the bundle from Vic's arms. "You'll need a clean sheet and shift, and I'll fetch you some cloths to catch the flow and a little mandragora to ease the pain."

Vic reached out to touch the other girl's hand. "Promise you won't speak of this to anyone."

"I—I could not _lie_ , miss," she stammered and Vic wanted to roll her eyes.

 _Stupid Maggie, getting married and leaving me with this insipid lump of a girl._ "I would never ask it of you, only I should like to tell my mother myself, not have her hear it from another source. You understand, don't you?"

A soft look spread across Anne's face. "Yes, miss, of course I understand. And I promise not to breathe a word."

Vic smiled sweetly, said, "Thank you, Anne," but her smile slid away the moment the door shut. She thought of her mother and her aunts, talking endlessly of dull nothings, who seemed to be always with child, or recovering from a birth, or grieving the ones who did not live. In her short life, Vic had stood by the graves of two of those aunts who'd died of their babes. And of the seven graves numbering the youngest who were mourned, two were her own brothers. 

It was to a life such as this that her body's betrayal condemned her.

She _would_ find the means to escape.

**Author's Note:**

> translated literally, the epigraph reads 'if i cannot bend the gods (to my will), i will move the acheron' (acheron being a river in the underworld), but the common modern translation is more along thematic lines: 'if i cannot bend/sway the heavens, i will move hell'. it seems a fitting sentiment for vic in any century. her view of the role of women is fairly radical and definitely heretical for the period; but i do not doubt there were contemporary women of all classes who thought along those lines. you only have to look at the writings of influential women (and even a few men) of the times to see milder (though far less heretical) reflections of the same ideas. (for example, christine de pizan's "the book of the city of ladies".) at this point in history, across all classes, girls were married off as young as 13 and one in three women died in childbirth or due to related complications. there's never been a particularly good time in human history to be female, but the middle ages was certainly a low point.


End file.
